


Touch (dancing in the moonlight remix)

by Vera



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Character of Color, Community: 12in2010, Community: remix_redux, Episode: s01e05 Suspicion, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"What's it like to know so many skies?"</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch (dancing in the moonlight remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astolat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Touch](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/749) by astolat. 



> Thanks to *those whose names shall be inserted here after the reveal* for advice. You know who you are!

In the aftermath of discovering that Teyla's necklace was a Wraith transmitter, Atlantis had felt claustrophobic. Regardless of the facts, some people were slow to let go of their suspicions. John had been glad of the opportunity to assign his team an overnight mission. They seemed buoyed when he briefed them: despite the expected discomforts, the novelty of new planets had not worn off.

P3R-772 was verdant; shaggy-grassed meadows rolled greenly away from the Stargate platform in all directions. A series of low slopes finally arrived at a ring of forest, where the leaves of smooth-barked, broad-canopied trees gleamed silver in the bright light of two moons hanging low. It was in the lee of this forest, about a kilometer from the Stargate, that they had chosen to camp. The inhabitants of P3R-772 had courteously offered to welcome them into their homes, but before Rodney could accept, Teyla had just as politely refused.

"What was that about?" Rodney asked, grumpily helping John put up a low two-man tent. "They might have had beds. With mattresses!"

Teyla and Aiden, already finished erecting the other tent, sat and watched John and Rodney erect their tent much more efficiently than would be expected from listening to Rodney's grumbling complaints.

"The Alkemel are a courteous people; the certainty of any offer is in the phrasing. They asked us to stay with them intending us to refuse. To accept would have offended them greatly."

"They did feed us, Doctor McKay. You can't complain about that." Aiden rubbed an appreciative hand across his belly.

John caught the movement and recalled tender meat, sweet vegetables and spicy sauce.

"Sir, maybe we should ask to trade for Alkemel cooks as well as supplies."

Rodney nodded as he unzipped the tent, "Yes, excellent idea. Major, add a cook to the list. The one who cooked for us tonight will do fine."

John glanced at Teyla and away before he replied, "We're not trading people, McKay."

"_Services_, we'd be offering them a _job_." He rolled his eyes, an act entirely obvious to John even though Rodney's back was to him. Rodney bent to enter the tent, shoving his pack before him, the straps and belts he still wore awkwardly creasing and stretching his clothing. He shuffled out of the tent backwards, on his knees, laptop tucked under one arm. When he stood up, he turned to the twin moons, visible above the tree line and the distant curve of the Stargate, their light softening his face. Something about them made him smile, and Teyla rose to stand beside him.

"They are called Ask and Answer, Doctor McKay," she said. "Ask is the smaller one." As they watched, the distance between Ask and Answer, already widening when they had started to set up their tents, became so great that Ask appeared to drop suddenly and wholly behind the trees on the other side of the Stargate meadow. Teyla sighed and smiled a little. "I've always loved planets with moons. The night is so much lovelier in silver."

"And visibility is better," Aiden added.

"Well," John said, choosing his own patch of grass and sitting, "You don't always want good visibility at night."

"Yes, thank you, G.I. Joe, for reminding me that we're lit up like a Christmas tree on a strange planet." Rodney flapped his free hand at the trees, as if to say _lions, tigers and bears!_ or _here be dragons_. It didn't matter how dark the night, he could always make himself obvious.   
John raised his eyebrows at Rodney and took a swig from his water bottle. Rodney's cranky verbosity sometimes made him thirsty. He figured it was sympathetic dryness of the throat, but it also allowed him to control his too-mobile face.

Aiden nodded and started to agree, but was interrupted by Teyla.

"What do you mean, Doctor McKay?"

"It's an alien planet. With aliens! We don't know them or if there are dangerous animals or insects or trees! The trees could be —" His hand became even more animated and the elbow tucked around his laptop twitched in sympathy.

"Athos and Alkem have been allies for many generations. You are safe here." She looked at each of them, one at a time meeting their eyes before she spoke again, to Answer, gleaming in the night sky. " As safe as it is anywhere now the Wraith are awake."

John had been enjoying the conversation, the moonlight, the pleasant post-dinner feeling of repletion and, of course, watching Rodney bounce from excitement to agitation and back. Now he felt the twist in his gut, the responsibility and the grief and the rage at the futility of dearly wishing to change what was done. Teyla looked like a queen in the moonlight; her strong features in profile a palette of light and shadow.

She swept her hand around, her gesture encompassing the moons, the encircling forest, the meadow, the Stargate and finally, their camp. "Until we are accepted as friends, we are strangers wherever we go," she said. Then, perhaps taking pity on them, she changed the subject. "You have not seen such a sky as this before, Dr McKay." She did not ask, but he answered as if she had.

"No, God, no. But I've dreamed of seeing this. Two moons! All the simulations, the images, the movie special effects aren't a patch on standing here, watching them." He grinned at her, and John saw the boy he'd once been, looking up at the night sky, dreaming and yearning. "What's it like to know so many skies?"

Teyla face creased with puzzlement. "Skies are like planets, like the faces of people, each one is new when first you see it. Isn't it like that for your people? Don't you travel very widely in your galaxy?"

Aiden was answered first. "Where we come from, Earth, very few people know about the Stargate and not everyone who does is permitted to travel through it."

"You restrict access to the Stargate on your world?" She was truly shocked.

"We're at war. We can't allow the Stargate to fall into the hands of our enemies."

"That said," Rodney added, "Our governments would restrict access even without the threat of the Goa'uld. The spirit of scientific cooperation is not generally found in the hearts of bureaucrats, politicians and," here he paused and glanced at John, then Aiden, "the military."

John forbore a response to criticism he'd heard too often before; Rodney just wanted to be first with everything. Aiden, however, nodded. "There's good reason, Doc." Rodney harrumphed and, taking a seat on the ground and opening his laptop, changed the subject.

"If we'd brought a puddlejumper, I would have some data on the moons," he began. John cut him off. "You're on last watch, McKay. Shouldn't you get some sleep?"

"Yes, yes, I suppose you're right. Not that I'll get much sleep on the hard ground." Aiden muffled a snort, Teyla smiled and John didn't, all of them already familiar with Rodney's ability to sleep and sleep loudly. They listened to his noisy settling, each much more acclimated to stillness and contemplation. Finally, there was no more rustling and shuffling from inside the tent. The second moon, setting more slowly than its partner, was casting longer shadows. The Stargate's shadow had stretched towards them as they'd talked. Aiden lay down where he was, hands tucked behind his head, and closed his eyes.

"Nudge me in two hours, Teyla." Like any good marine, he appeared to fall asleep instantly and silently.

For a while, silence was their companion. The night on P3R-772 — on Alkem — sounded much like night on Earth to John's ears. Something like crickets whispered in the longer grass outside their tromped down camp semi-circle. A breeze rustled the trees at the edge of his hearing. He could barely hear a sound from Teyla or Ford, but Rodney snuffled and snorted occasionally, like a big growly sleeping bear. While he'd been stretching his ears, he hadn't noticed that the remaining moon had finally sunk to the trees and, in a matter of moments, the night had become very dark. High and far, far away stars appeared spread across the sky. He found himself trying to recognize constellations that weren't there, seeking the familiar in the alien sky when suddenly Teyla's words came back to him: _ Until we are accepted as friends, we are strangers wherever we go_. He blinked at the cool night air stinging his eyes and felt more alien, more a stranger than he ever had.

Speaking quietly he said, "Think I'll turn in now, Teyla. See you in the morning."

Her soft "Goodnight, Major" followed as he crawled into the tent beside Rodney. He made his small preparations and, wriggling as little as possible and with remarkable consideration for Rodney's comfort, got into his sleeping bag, shuffled on to his side and tried to will away the clear, cold, unfamiliar sky that had taken possession of his gut. He slowed his breathing and, following an old exercise, relaxed his body until an observer would have said, yes, that man is asleep. Only monitoring of his heart and his brain would have given him away. And his open eyes, fixed on the side of the tent sloping in front of his nose. That was the same on every planet. Another night, another sleepless night. Behind him, Rodney snuffled, breathed sharply and deeply. Recently acquired practice, almost second nature, already, kept John's own breathing steady. Rodney moved closer, his arm embracing John like a shock, his nose and lips suddenly at John's nape, breath in John's hair and the solid, warm feeling of his body through several layers of clothes and sleeping bags, completely relaxed against John.

Another sleepless night.


End file.
